Heretofore, the production of block ice in commercial quantities has been a labor intensive process and a very inefficient energy wise process. The custom has been to freeze water in cells which are immersed or partially immersed in a cold brine solution which does not freeze at the freezing temperature of ice. Thereafter it has been necessary, after the water in the ice product cells has frozen, to heat by some means the outside of the product cell to melt the ice immediately next to the interior walls of the product cell in order that the ice may be removed. Then, the ice, once removed is placed into refrigerator storage where the immediate outside of the ice block must be re-frozen.
As is obvious, this provides for an immensely inefficient and energy wasting system, first from the aspect that an intermediary, i.e., the brine solution must be cooled in order to cool the ice product cell to freeze the water inside; and second that the product cell walls must be heated to release the ice contained therein.
In addition, it is obvious that great expenditure of labor is necessary to fill the ice product cells with initial water and then, upon the freezing of the block ice, to remove the ice. In the present situation, because of the inefficiency and slowness of removing heat from the ice product cell's water to the brine solution and then the refrigeration system evaporator, the freezing of water takes approximately eight hours per cycle. This, it is obvious, ties up a great deal of capital in machinery for what turns out to be a small amount of ice harvested in relation to the capital expended.
Accordingly, there is a need for a block ice making machine which operates as efficiently as possible, as rapidly as possible, and in which as many as the operations as possible may be done automatically, especially the filling of the product cells with new water and the removal of the newly formed ice block.